At Any Cost
by PegasusBoots
Summary: Corrin found herself involuntarily backing away, seeking the safety of distance between herself and the beast that stood in Keaton's place. His eyes, feral and filled with wrath, met hers. "Now I'll take your life in exchange for my friend's."


"You…" Keaton growled.

He stood before her: the proud leader of his beleaguered pack, the guardian of Mount Garou. Were it not for the blood staining his clothes and the snarl twisting his mouth, he would have been handsome, Corrin supposed. Sounds of battle echoed around them as they stared one another down. Feral howls, the screams of pegasi, and the clash of metal against fang rang loudly in her ears. This shouldn't be happening. It was a misunderstanding. Corrin gripped the hilt of the Yato tightly and pushed her fear aside, stepping toward the wolfssegner, snow crunching beneath her feet.

"Please, hear me out!" Corrin called out. "If we could just-"

"Shut it, human!" Keaton bellowed. His dark eyes narrowed into a sharp glare. Corrin swallowed, her words sticking in her throat.

"I knew I shouldn't have trusted humans. None of you are leaving this place alive!" he roared, swiftly reaching for the dark stone from the pouch at his thigh.

"Wait, no!" Corrin cried. A bright light enveloped the wolfssegner, the telltale sign of an imminent transformation. Corrin ground her teeth and readied her stance, the Yato glowing blue in her grasp, resonating with its master's will. There was no going back now.

He reappeared, the light dissipating as quickly as it had materialized. He had doubled in size, covered with thick muscles head to toe with crimson and ebony fur coating him. The claws adorning his massive hands were like razors, cruel fangs jutting from his mask-like face. His scarlet eyes practically glowed with murderous intent. Corrin found herself involuntarily backing away, seeking the safety of distance between herself and the beast that stood in Keaton's place. His eyes, feral and filled with wrath, met hers.

"Now I'll take your life in exchange for my friend's."

His voice was now deep and distorted, and absolutely dripping with malice. The wolf threw his head back and howled, rage pouring through his throat in a dissonant battlecry. The sound chilled Corrin's blood. With a bestial roar, he slammed his powerful fists to the ground, scattering the snow around him. He lunged towards her, the ground quaking beneath his heavy paws.

He shouldn't be so fast for his size. Corrin spun in a sidestep, narrowly avoiding being impaled by the scarlet spike protruding from the wolfssegner's forehead. Whirling around, she brought the Yato down in a slash, only to have her blade meet nothing but air. Keaton had leapt back, and was readying for another assault, a hooked hand quickly plummeting toward her. Sharp claws clashed with the sacred blade as she parried with the Yato in a two-handed grip. Corrin staggered under the impact of his overwhelming strength. Her crimson eyes met his again as she strained to maintain her block, her arms trembling with the effort. Strangely, Corrin thought she could see something of herself in his wild eyes. Her dragon blood echoed his wolf blood in a way she could not describe. Perhaps, she thought, if they had met under different circumstances, Corrin and Keaton could have been friends.

Belatedly, she noticed the wolfssegner swipe with his other hand, and pushed herself back. Though she avoided the bulk of the blow, which would have certainly broken some ribs, hooked claws dug into her side and sent her sprawling. She landed facedown a few meters away, the snow doing nothing to soften the impact. Keaton howled, seeming to crow at his successful strike. Her vision swimming with pain, Corrin could only hear the wolfssegner's rapid approach and knew she had to act quickly. Clutching the Yato flat to her chest, Corrin swiftly rolled, dodging a punch that made the earth tremble around her.

Corrin scrambled to her feet, her blood marring the snow where she had laid. She quickly glanced down at the wound in her side. Her armor was torn open, parallel streaks of rent steel running along her torso with blood languidly oozing from the fissures carved into her flesh. In front of where she stood clasping her side, Keaton growled, pulling his fist from the crater left from its collision with the ground. He turned to face her, all the while admiring Corrin's blood dribbling through his fingers. He laughed humorlessly.

"This is the last thing you'll see!" he thundered, charging toward her on all fours.

Corrin looked at the Yato still in her grip. Her extensive sword lessons with Xander could not be applied here. Xander, while a fiend in his own right in combat, was not a hulking monster with killer claws and blood rage. She cast the sacred blade aside.

To fight a beast, she must become a beast.

Corrin reached to the glittering stone adorning her neck. The wolfssegner didn't slow his pace, his maw gaping open and ready to crush her with wicked fangs. He clamped down where her head was, getting instead a mouthful of spikes. Keaton recoiled, howling in pain. In Corrin's place stood a horned dragon, silver and lithe.

She raised herself to her full height, pawing at the snowy ground. The wolfssegner snarled, but said nothing as he sized her up in her new form. Corrin would not give him the benefit of striking first again. She reared, tail thrashing, and leaped toward the wolf, antlers angled on the attack. With a strangled roar, Keaton caught the bases of her horns with his hands, barbed points burrowing into his palms. He growled darkly and met her gaze. She dug her talons into the earth and thrust forward, attempting to drive the wolf back as he grappled with her. They matched each other in strength now, her draconic form lending her much needed might. Her side ached dully, a painful reminder of what her failure would entail.

Corrin twisted, wrenching her head from the wolfssegner's grip, ripping the barbs of her antlers through the flesh of his hands. She reared back and brought her talons down in a savage slash, catching the wolf squarely in the chest. He howled in pain and pitched away from her, crimson bubbling from the fresh stripes in his flesh. Sensing an opening, Corrin lowered her head and charged again. Keaton brought his ragged palms together, entwining his bloody claws. He whirled his body around and swung his fists like a mace, slamming into Corrin's cheek and sending her reeling.

Dazed from the wolf's blow, Corrin stumbled to her feet, her taloned limbs struggling to find purchase in the slushy earth. There was too much at stake, too many people counting on her to fall here. Through the stars that obscured her vision, she could see the wolf on the attack again. As he leapt toward her with claws bared, she spun around and lashed with her spiked tail, catching the wolfssegner in the head. Clutching his face and yowling in agony, Keaton tumbled to the ground, his blood mingling with Corrin's in the snow.

Corrin's head throbbed, still pounding from the brutal shot she received. She needed to end this. Keaton pushed himself to his feet, staggering as he turned to face Corrin. Blood seeped from a ruined eye, his mouth twisted into a fierce snarl as a guttural growl crept from his throat. Corrin pawed the ground, adrenaline pulsing through her veins.

Again, Keaton slammed his fists into the ground, the impact splitting the earth beneath his hands. He threw his head back and howled long and deep, the baleful sound resonating across the peak. Other howls joined his, their cries melding with his, sending shivers down Corrin's spine. No longer able to ignore the bestial instinct thudding in her chest, Corrin planted her feet and roared in response. Her dragon blood pounded in her ears, drowning any humanity she clung to in the heat of battle.

Lowering her head, the dragon rushed the wolfssegner, the curved spines of her antlers glinting red with wolfblood. Digging his claws into the ground, Keaton lurched toward Corrin, his horn aimed directly at her heart. Snapping her wings open, Corrin rolled her body mid-leap, screaming as his scarlet horn sank deeply into her shoulder. She arched the length of her neck and thrust her head up into Keaton's chest, impaling the wolfssegner on her spiny horns. He jolted, tearing the spike from Corrin's shoulder as a choked cry ripped from his throat.

It was silent for a moment. All Corrin could feel was blood, both Keaton's and her own; it sluiced warmly through the barbs of her antlers and down her face, streamed from her punctured shoulder, her maimed side. The draconic haze that had seized her vanished, the consequences of what she had just done crashing down on her. Keaton had gone still.

Corrin relinquished her draconic state and returned to her human form, finding herself standing with her forehead pressed against Keaton's grievously wounded chest. She pulled away, blood pasting her hair, now stained crimson, to her face. She looked up at the wolfssegner towering over her, eyes wide. Keaton stood immobile, appearing to be a statue in monument to agony. Light swathed him as his bestial form abandoned him. Face to face they now stood, Keaton's labored breathing cutting the silence. His knees buckled and he began to fall.

Without thought or any regard to the pain she felt herself, Corrin caught Keaton to her chest as he collapsed. His one good eye met hers, the light behind it rapidly fading.

"Ugh… Why did you have to come here…?" he whispered.

Corrin felt her eyes prickle. Why had she come here? She had to stop her father, the ruthless king of Nohr, at any cost. Any cost…

She looked up as she gently eased the wolfssegner down to the ground, up at her allies cutting down wolfskin after wolfskin. Their broken bodies littered the mountainside, the snow more red than white. She knelt down and cradled Keaton to her, though not really understanding why. He coughed wetly, her gaze falling to his face. Blood striped his cheek, steadily trickling from the remnants of his eye. The remaining eye was fixed on her, though his focus was beginning to falter.

"Keaton, I…" she murmured weakly. Her words dying in her throat, she averted her eyes. She could not justify massacre to Keaton in his final moments. A tear trickled down her cheek, quickly engulfed by the blood spattered on her face. Corrin had only wanted keep a tragedy like Mikoto's death from repeating itself. Wanted an end to the conflict. Wanted to protect those dear to her. Was Keaton any different from her?

Corrin looked back to his face, only to see that his expression had gone blank. His glassy eye stared past her, blinded in death. Sighing a shuddering breath, Corrin gingerly laid Keaton onto the snowy ground. She rose from where she had been kneeling, wincing as the movement exacerbated her wounds. She spotted the Yato a few meters away, stuck in the ground where she had flung it away. Corrin eyed it for a moment before taking the blade in hand and wrenching it free from its earthy pedestal.

It felt so heavy in her hands.


End file.
